Recently, moving image recording apparatuses utilizing mass storage media typified by hard disk drives (HDD) have come into widespread use. As recording media have gained mass storage capability, it has become possible to record large numbers of moving image files.
In a recording apparatus of this type, in order to improve user operability it is essential to provide the capability to search for and find quickly and easily a target moving image file from among a large number of moving image files recorded.
For example, it is possible to provide a search function that finds and categorizes image data with the date as search criteria using date of creation information recorded as moving image file management information or moving image file metadata (date search function).
However, for a recording that straddles midnight during recording, it is possible that the date of recording in the mind of the user and the recorded date of creation information are different. In such an instance, when the user carries out a date search, the search results will not be what the user intends. If the results are not what the user intends, it is then necessary to designate the dates before and after the original search date and carry out the search again, which gives the user a poor impression of the apparatus' usability.
Patent Publication No. 1 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-053871) discloses an information processor that, when conducting a search by date of an image photographed using a digital camera or the like, in addition to the designated date also deems the next day up to a predetermined time as the date of the previous day and carries out the search. With Patent Publication No. 1, a series of images photographed straddling midnight such as an event or the like can be correctly obtained as search results using the foregoing search.
However, with Patent Publication No. 1, because up to a preset, predetermined time is deemed to be the previous day, images photographed after that time are not included in the search results, and thus does not provide a basic solution to the problem. In addition, Patent Publication No. 1 basically targets still images, and there is no suggestion whatsoever of handling images that straddle midnight during recording of a single moving image file.